232 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



liave lieard, and which, according to unanimous testimony ,^^ began in 

 the year 1747. Fishing seems to have commenced in the neighborhood 

 of Tjorn and the Marstrand Islands, but soon after seems to have ex- 

 tended along the whole southern coast to the boundary of Holland. 

 Later the herrings chiefly came to the coast between Marstrand and 

 Lysekil, and after the year 1773 also to the northern coast. In 1778 

 occasional herrings are said to have been seen near the Hval Islands, 

 in that part of Southeastern Norway which bounds Bohusliin. On the 

 northern coast the herrings advanced a little farther north every year, 

 whilst their quality had already begun to deteriorate. In speaking of 

 the northern coast in those times, the coast north of Sotenaes is not 

 counted in, but this term only applies to the coast between Marstrand 

 and Lysekil. Towards the end of this fishing-period, however, large 

 quantities of herring again came to the southern coast ; but this was 

 considered an exceptional case. The Norwegian natiu-alist Axel Boeck 

 has shown that a similar change has taken place, both in the Norwegian 

 spring-herring fisheries and in the Bohusliin fisheries during the six- 

 teenth century, and we are therefore justified in expecting that this will 

 also take place in the future, in case the herrings should again come to 

 our coast. This fishing-period came to an end in 1808, after ha^'ing 

 lasted sixty-two years, and this event was foreshadowed by the moving 

 of the fish in a northerly direction, by the later and later appearance of 

 the fish, " finally only about Christmas time," and by its being mixed 

 with small herring during the last year of this fishing-period. The value 

 of these indications for the future is increased, since the above-men- 

 tioned Norwegian naturalist has shown that the same took place at the 

 close of the Bohusliin fisheries in 1590 and of the Norwegian fisheries 

 in 1787 and 1870.^^ 



The fisheries, however, grew in importance only very graduallj', for 

 Sweden could not, as Norway had done formerly, send a sufficient number 

 of experienced fishermen to the coast, but these had to be educated by 

 degrees. From the Dutch the Swedes learned the proper way of pre- 

 l)aring the herrings, and soon movable nets were adopted instead of 

 stationary ones. As a great many more herrings were caught than 

 could conveniently be salted and smoked, people in the year 17G0 began 

 to make oil of those that were left over. All this was easier, for both 

 the new method of fishing and the manufacture of oil required only a 

 comparatively small number of men, which as early as during the fisheries 

 of the sixteenth century had been considered a great advantage. For- 

 eigners were excluded from the fisheries and from the trade in fresh her- 

 rings, although the last-mentioned regulation was not strictly enforced 



3- The year 1752, which iu some works is mentioiied as the time when tliese fisheries 

 commenced, is probably the year when the herrings commenced to approach the Gott- 

 eubiirg coast in any considerable number. 



^^■A. Boeclc, ^^Om Silden og Sildefiskerierne" &c. [On the herring and the herring-fish- 

 eries, &c. ]. I. Christiania, 1871, p. 102-118 ; Goteborg^s ock Boluisldtis HitshuUnhig-SdUs- 

 kaps QuartaUskrift [Quarterly Review of the Gottenbiu-g and Bohusliin Economical 

 -Society], October, 1870, p. 36-39 and 44-54. 



